My first genealogy research trip: Port Huron, Michigan, Summer 2003 (well, this wasn't actually a research trip...I was really there to visit relatives...but this was the first time I snuck in some research at the courthouse)

My first kiss: July 23, 1995 (I'm not telling who...hint...where does it seem like I spend most of my summers?)

My first birthday party (that I can remember): My third birthday party at McDonalds

My first vacation to Michigan: 1981 (I was just a baby - My mom and I were sick for the whole drive from Louisiana to Michigan...can you imagine traveling 1,300 miles with a sick child AND being sick yourself???)

My first pet: My great-grandpa Mertena's dog Lena. She showed up on my great-grandpa's doorstep just a few days after my great-grandma died in 1986. My grandmother inherited her when he died in 1989, and then she was passed to us. She was a little white chihuahua mutt. She eventually got passed back to my grandma for some reason. I'm sure us kids didn't take care of her like we said we would, so my parents sent her back.

My first loss of a great-grandparent: Grandma Mertena (paternal grandmother's mother) on 7 May 1986. I had just turned five years old two weeks earlier.

My first loss of a grandparent: Mimi (maternal grandmother) on 15 Dec 2008. I was 27 years old.

My first date with Cade: 3 Sep 2004 to Pepper's restaurant in Lake Charles, Louisiana, and then to the movies to see Papparazzi (stupid movie)